


"Should you stay?"

by Moeta



Series: Moeta's fictober [8]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Caleb Widogast Deserves Nice Things, Caleb Widogast Needs a Hug, Caleb Widogast is a Mess, Fictober, Fictober 2019, Internal Conflict, POV Caleb Widogast, Sad Caleb Widogast
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-28 12:56:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20966927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moeta/pseuds/Moeta
Summary: All was black at the dead of night, exactly half an hour after the second last of the nein fell asleep. Caleb knew, because he counted, now it was safe to slip away unnoticed, lessening their burden and the target on their backs. He looked back into the growing forest on behind him, closing his eyes for a minute he then gathered his things and left without a sound, sinking into the woods, vanishing.





	"Should you stay?"

**Author's Note:**

> Fictober 2019, Day 8: "Can you stay?"  
Arguing with friends is a bad business and it isn't made better by their absence
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

All was black at the dead of night, exactly half an hour after the second last of the Nein fell asleep. Caleb knew, because he counted, now it was safe to slip away unnoticed, lessening their burden and the target on their backs. He looked back into the growing forest on behind him, closing his eyes for a minute. He then gathered his things and left without a sound, sinking into the woods, vanishing.

“They’re better for it”, he told himself, as he moved silently through the undergrowth. The moon was high in the sky this night reflecting off of a lake Caleb had just found.

Caleb stopped beside the body of water and looked into it, the water was still, quiet as the night air around him. He saw himself looking back at him in the moonlit lake.

“Can  _ you _ stay? with  _ them _ ?”, he asked his visage. Of course he couldn’t he was a sharp knife in a bag of sweets, he’d only tear the bag letting them all hit the floor, getting tainted with dust and dirt and spoiling all of them. 

Caleb wanted to continue his retreat, yet he couldn’t tear himself away from himself. “ _ Can _ you stay? When they all know, will they even let you?”. Of course they wouldn’t he was a bad man, who had done very bad things, who wouldn’t get redemption.

“ _ Should _ you stay?”, Caleb was about to answer what he thought out loud but he faltered. 

He could he Jester’s voice telling him, “ _ you _ are a sweet Caleb, just like  _ us _ !”, the voice even ended in a telltale giggle which made Caleb smile a little before stopping himself.

“It’s wrong, I’m selfish, I don’t deserve this. I can’t indulge because they don’t know me or my asshole self”, he reprimanded himself out loud.

Caleb couldn’t help but replay Beauregard’s whole speech about assholes doing good. He would ask them all, why they couldn’t just make this easy for him but he was alone. He began pacing, why don’t they just let him be alone so he can’t make things worse?

“_You_ _might _make things _worse_, _we _might all become _better_. Together _we_ will do better”, Fjord would tell him with his charismatic voice.

Caleb couldn’t argue, not when his mind was filled with his friends’ counterarguments and different point of view. Caleb was almost loosing his mind to his friends out in the dark beside a lake, they were right. He was an asshole but Beau was right they’d do good and that’s the best way for an asshole to act. He might just become a better person he shouldn’t work with definitives when things weren’t definitive. He could be sweet, Jester might sometimes almost forced his hand to be so, but he never fought it.

“I might as well just stay”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!  
Have a splendid day! (If you want to of course)  
:~)


End file.
